Dr. Pepper Roast

Have you noticed there’s been an increase in the popularity of slow cooker recipes lately? I dunno, maybe it’s just me, but I feel like every other pin on pinterest is a recipe for a slow cooker. They all claim to be SO GOOD. Well, I’m going to share my honest opinion about crockpot cooking…

Here are the pros: I think crockpots are marvelously convenient. You throw a bunch of ingredients in, and it does the rest for you. You have a hot-cooked meal waiting for you when you get home. They also make your house smell intoxicatingly delicious. And lastly, you can make some killer dips for football parties using your crockpot.

Now here are the cons: I leave for work at 6:30 AM. You might not leave at that exact time, but like most working Americans, you probably leave for work between 6 and 8 in the morning. Most recipes call for the crockpot to cook for 6 to 8 hours on low. Well that puts my meat getting ready right at….lunchtime. And then it just sits in the “warming” mode for the remaining 4 or 5 hours until dinner. All the while the meat gets drier. Also, from my experience…nearly every crockpot recipe comes out tasting…meh. It’s just that all the flavors have run together and they’re no longer distinct and vibrant. If you put veggies or potatoes in with your meat, then they won’t taste like veggies or potatoes…they just taste like a mushy thing that has the same flavor as your meat.

So there you have it…that’s my take on the slow cooker craze. However, in the wasteland of vapid tasting meals from the slow cooker, I have found a couple of gems. Compared to all the other roasts from a crockpot I’ve eaten, this is the best one. And I cooked it on the weekend so it wouldn’t be drying out all afternoon between lunch and dinner, but I could time it just right to get ready at dinnertime. My favorite thing about this recipe is the gravy it makes. You almost certainly have to serve mashed potatoes with this dish to sop up the gravy!

Recipe sounds great. If you go to the hardware store and get a timer like people use to turn their lights on and off, you can set it so that it starts cooking later in the day. I work long hours and this works out great. It doesn’t sit on warm and get mushy.

I have a really nice “All-Clad” slow cooker and yes, you pay a little more for it, but you can delay starting; and when it’s finished it will switch to “warm” automatically for an hour. works like a charm; never have to worry about it and it’s a large size.

I find most things don’t dry out if there is enough liquid added I cooked a small pork roast for 2 days in my crock pot on low with golden mushroom soup and lipton onion soup mix Just added extra water and it melted in my mouth Didn’t add any vegetables I prefer them raw or lightly steamed Don’t like mushy veggies.

I guess I could do that too Do you reheat things in the microwave or something else? For me, reheating in the microwave makes the meat have hot and cold spots It works for leftovers, but not what I prefer for dinner.

If you are going to reheat anything in the microwave that you don’t want to to cook, but rather warm, using a wet paper towel to cover the food. This will lock in the moisture; allow you to warm it a little longer to avoid cold spots; and retain much of its original flavor.

Would any kind of beef or pork roast do? I have a hard time finding good recipes for lean roasts like pork loin and inside round…may just try this anyway and send another comment to you! thanks for the leg-work!

An *excellent* recipe – so glad that a friend shared it on her pinterest page! I added baby carrots 2-2.5 hours before serving, and they were cooked perfectly Served on a bed of mashed potatoes, and I had some happy campers at our dinner table! Every bit as good as the pot roast at Black Eyed Pea! Thanks so much!

Cream of celery would probably be the most similar. I’m sure cream of mushroom would be really good, but it has a more distinct flavor Also, I like the little bitty chunks of potato in the soup, so you might want to add some of your own.

If I end up using a smaller roast like 2 or 3 pound, I assume I need to cut down on how long to cook it? Also, do I need to cut down the measurements of the ingreidients? Only 3 of the 6 in my family will eat it so I’d rather have a smaller one to avoid a ton of leftovers – just 1 days worth of leftovers is all my family will tolerate.

I think it would probably need to cook around 5-6 hours As for the other ingredients, that depends on how much gravy you want You could leave all the ingredients the same and just have lots of extra gravy or you could reduce it to be more proportional to the roast Honestly, I would have preferred for mine to have a little more gravy because it was so good!

Best way I found to cut the recipe in half is to mix the soups and seasonings together and freeze half of the mixture in an empty sour cream container. The next time I made a small roast, I just had to thaw the mixture (microwave on half power gets it done in no time!), add 1 can of DP, and pour over the roast. There were no leftovers (family of 5), but I could take advantage of the smaller roasts that were on sale.t Talk about making an easy recipe even easier! Thanks for our new favorite go-to roast! 🙂

YUMMY! Found you on Pinterest, and took a chance, Very yummy roast! I didn’t see the part about 2 cans of cream of potato soup, so I used a can of cream of celery too, didn’t hurt it one bit. Will definately make it again. Thanks!

Umm I think it would definitely be missing some flavor if you didn’t replace it with anything Maybe try another mix like a packet or dry ranch seasoning or something along those lines Let me know how it works out for you!

Frist off smells great so far.. but few questions what is the point of the soups ? Dose it thinken up? Also I just put it in the bottom and roast on top top with packet of onion soup and Dr pepper But should I have mixed everything together and poured over the top??? Lol prob just over thinking LOL thanks and hope it turns out …

Hi Court,
I really don’t think it’s a big deal that you didn’t mix it up However, if you check it while it’s cooking and all the powder doesn’t seem to be absorbing into the liquid, then a quick stir won’t hurt! It also might help to spoon some of the mixture over the meat to make it more moist, but honestly I don’t think it will make a huge difference Let me know how it turns out!

So delicious! Though the trickiest part was not buying a roast to fit in crock pot as the liquids take up about half of the pot. I had to cut an inch off my roast in order to get it to work. I also transferred the leftover liquid to the stove to make a thicker gravy. As just two of us, we ate 1/3rd, kept a 1/3rd for sandwiches this weekend, and froze a 1/3rd in its gravy (sliced) for a future super easy dinner.

This did not turn out great for me. The gravy was good, but the roast beef was still tough. I used a good cut of top sirloin roast and cooked it for six hours. It was 2kg and I did not want it to dry out. Maybe another hour or so would have helped..

I just made this and its awesome!! My boyfriend loves dr pepper so I marinated the meat in it overnight to try to get it sweeter. Not sure if it actually did anything but we loved it!! Thanks for sharing this!!

The cooking time can be a problem, but if you invest in a timer that you plug into the outlet
then your slow cooker into the timer, you can set the beginning and ending times and have
no worry about dried out or overdone food. The timer comes in handy when you are going to be gone from home on a trip as you plug your table lamp into it and it comes on and goes off at the times you select giving the home the look of having someone there.

Do you feel that it is safe to set a timer to start the Slow Cooker later in the day? I always think that the meat will get warm just sitting at room temperature, and spoil. How long is safe to leave it set before it starts cooking?

Joyce, that is a very good question! I think it depends on a lot of things: the type of meat, how fresh the meat is, the temperature of the room, etc. Honestly, I think it’d have to be sitting out quite a long time to actually make you sick, but ya just never know!

Hey, I just wanted to give a little advice. I have always had problems with roasts in the crock pot being overly dry, so I would take them out earlier, but no help. Then a few months ago I was reading something on another website…a crocking website. It said that the problem with dry meat in the crock pot is undercooking, not overcooking. So, I tried it and danged if it didn’t work. I have cooked several beef and pork roasts in the crock since then and they all melt in your mouth. So, I say…LET THEM COOK as long as possible….8 – 10 hours at least. You will not be dissapointed!

I tried your recipe several times. It is exccellent!!! I made it for company and they loved it. The first 2 times I used a chuck roast and it was soooo good. The last time I used a rump roast and didn’t cook long enough as it was tough. So will cook 8 hours instead of 7 if I use it again. But really was so delicious with the chuck will probably stick to it. Thanks so much for this wonderful recipe.

Hi just a few questions..About how much of the seasoning do you use?.. Do you mix soups place in the crock pot, top with roast add season with the onion soup and Tony’s then the dr pepper around the roast
It sounds GREAT!!

Hi Vanessa,
I used only 1/2 tsp of the Tony’s because I just wanted a bit of flavor, not heat. As for mixing the ingredients, there really isn’t a wrong way to do it! You can put the roast in the crockpot, combine all the other ingredients in a bowl and then pour over. Or you can put in the roast, then top with each ingredient and stir it all together. Just as long as it’s all mixed together well, and the roast has some liquid on/around it for cooking, it’ll be great!

Made this roast tonight and loved the flavor! I used the shoulder roast and cooked it on low for 7 hours. My roast didn’t fall apart and had to be carved. From your picture it looked like yours fell apart. What should I do differently?

Usually if it doesn’t fall apart it means it needs to cook longer, but 7 hours should have been plenty! Maybe your crock pot cooks at a lower temperature than normal. My suggestion would be increasing cooking time, which means you might need to add a bit more liquid to make sure it doesn’t dry out. That’s my best guess! Hope that helps!

Just ran across this, so I’ll have to try your recipe… incidentally, some people have never herd of this, but I love to cook a beef roast AND pork roast together. along with carrots, onions, celery in my pressure cooker then in a large pot, I boil potatoes and when the roasts are done (45 minutes after the “jiggler” starts), I make a delicious gravy.